When I said I didn’t love you anymore, I was surprised and disappointed in myself. I couldn’t believe those words, buried deep inside, had left my mouth. I suppose it was only a matter of time before all the lying would weigh heavy on my heart and I would divulge everything to you. I remember how quiet you were. How hurt you were. Your silence was an indication that the truth sometimes doesn’t matter, nor is it important, when it’s at the cost of someone’s feelings, and I wondered why, when Mama always said the truth is what matters most, even if it hurts.

I don’t love you anymore. There I said it.

And after that, I remember covering my mouth in shock. The truth had leaked. I panicked. I looked around me, at society, at existence moving about and when I turned my back on you and decided to walk away I asked myself:

When did we start lying?
To ourselves
We created perfect lives about our imperfect lives
We were once children
We anxiously awaited adulthood because grown-ups were allowed to stay up late
They were allowed to have fun
To drink ferociously
To live by their own rules
And we were children
Taught to believe in make-believe
To have trust
To believe in stories read to us at bedtime
Stories which were just fabricated lies transformed into fantasy
But we loved them and we believed in them
I loved you and I believed in you
And there we were, lying to each other
Just to protect our hearts from damage
You are damaged
You sit in your office chair and stare out your window
Maybe you have thoughts of jumping?
Maybe you have dreams of being a bird?
Your routine days don’t make you happy anymore
And I don’t think they ever did
I don’t think I ever did
You used to smile
I used to too
I want to shake you
Life is not that bad
I want to press my fingers into your face and push your lips upright
I forget what you look like with a smile
For now, I am the only witness to your sad reflection in the window
Because I know what you’re thinking
You wonder: why am I here? What is my purpose?
You look down from your office window
At all of the people who look like scattered ants moving around frantically
The sun is so close, you can almost touch it
And the clouds are so thick you almost get lost in them
And although you’re perched high above
A tall skyscraper could never make you feel as though you’re on top of the world
You’re up in the sky and so close to heaven
But you don’t see it this way
You grab your office chair and throw it down the hall
You rip your keyboard out and smash your computer with it
You tear down every degree and diploma you have hanging on the wall
You lost your mind that day
And I couldn’t save you
You couldn’t save yourself
Everything that surrounds you is all that you are
What have you become?
A company drone
A machine of waste
Disposing your toxicity into a company who is consumed with the bottom line
I have always wanted to draw the line
But you always crossed it
You are just like them
And you know it
And because you know it
It makes you sick
So sick that this feeling has wrought in the pit of my stomach
Where you hoped I’d one day carry a child
But I can’t
Because I won’t bring a child into this world
And have its innocence be tarnished by monsters like you
To have it grow up and be a monster like you

Definitely, I don’t know, maybe
Confused, so you lied with your apologies and “but baby…”
I laugh when I think about all that
Because you weren’t all that
Despite what everyone says, it’s easier said than done
To pretend you never happened and to erase you until you’re gone
I thought I could do it but I can’t
So I’ll just settle for how angry I am and release it while I rant
About your inconsistencies
My indecency
Your shallow frame of mind
Your need for getting high
I used to tune out your savage words you arranged in sentences
I wasn’t allowed to climb your tall fences and
So I’ll lie here on the other side
Safe from your moral decline
All the while tangled in your web of chaos and self-destruction
You hate yourself, you hate the world, getting better was never part of the discussion
You think people are easy to dispose of
Because you’re messed up and you don’t believe in love
Your battered heart you claimed you ditched
So you beat mine up to get your fix
And now I’m lucky to hear it beat every now and then
The only proof I am alive after what you did
You piece of shit
You’ve made me repent for all your sins
You did
You did
You did
Good riddance

I’ll always love you, like I always said I would
We are one, there is nothing I wouldn’t do
But my illness and addiction, and your hope
Can’t save me or you

I’m troubled
There I said it
And I can’t give you credit
For the good that you’ve done
The only good you can do
Is pulling the trigger on that gun

Do it for me, do it for you

I’m no good.

It scares me
My thoughts are out and loud
How can you stand there so rigid and proud?
Your eyes say a lot
And I am left here to rot
While you use your silence to kill me
My life smells of decay
And you, you’re okay
When I’m a withering flower
I need sunshine and water
I need love, I need life

We’re nothing alike.

It scares me everyday
You’re there but you’re gone
And I’ve lost my way

Don’t let me go
Please hold my hand
Before I slip through the cracks
And you’ll wonder what could’ve been
I know you will.

Caught in between an unparalleled universe
Where young meets old
Together
Two worlds apart
Joined by a bridge
Of blood and heart

But you and I are not different
We’re alike
We were all born
And we all die
He says
I hang from every word
As he tries to catch his breath

He holds my hand and caresses my face
Marking this moment as bittersweet
And unforgettable
A moment I want to run from
A moment I can’t erase

And although he is weathered and tired
He is full of life when he smiles
He grips my hand tightly
It’s his way of telling me not to worry
But when I look into his eyes I see Fear
Cancer is a bully

And time
Time is flying by
It’s shortened when death meets life
A Rolodex of memories flashes before my eyes
He asks Why do I have to work hard to die?

My eyes are damp
Because of what I cannot change
Because of what cannot be undone
Cancer has won

I pray that God won’t give you what I can’t beat
He speaks
Words of selflessness
And power
I feel defeat

Is there a God? I ask myself
How could he rob a gentle man
Of his health?
He looks into my eyes
And says Where there is a beginning, there is an end
He has faith that where there is love
Hearts can mend

I can’t run anymore. I don’t have the strength to climb
Anymore
So I descend, from your pillar of shame
Calloused.
I scrounge for whatever bravery I can scrape from the ground, starving for what I have never tasted:

Beauty.

I look up, and there you are

Again and Again and Again

You present yourself unannounced, following my every move- mocking me. Taunting me. You stand behind a protective layer of glass, far from my reach, where my hands have the desire to choke you. And the desire to smother your face.

That is everyday
Tomorrow
And yesterday.

I am afraid of everyday.

You’re everything I don’t want to be, are the words that roll off of my tongue, naturally
With truth. And with conviction. Without effort
Or thought.

“Look a little closer”
She sneers
She snarls.
I refuse to look within her prying eyes…

Deny Deny Deny

Two fingers, which I have declared to the world by pointing them in a V, are now used to demonstrate the opposite of peace. They cover my eyes from what I don’t want to see, because I am at war with myself.

The girl in the mirror knows
I can’t
Be
Freed

And you caused it.

Her eyes insist a kind of honesty I have replaced with animosity. The girl in the mirror has changed
The rules
I refuse to follow.
I refuse to look.
I refuse to engage.

She disappears behind a layer of fog I have marked with each exhaled breath.
Unable to see her
I find comfort.

Face your fears- we are told. And so I’ve heard.
But what if the fear I face is… me?
And who the hell was I
Clenching onto
Every minute
Every second?
In front of you
When it was all a waste of time.Who are you to inspect my mind?
You’re not inclined to think like I
I and I
We meet with eyes
Eyes, which are the window to your soul
A soul, which you do not have
My soul you will never steal
For you are
Just
The girl in the mirror.

Hello was the last thing I remember hearing, before I was paralyzed by him; before I had any recollection of what occurred before what occurred; before the effects of alcohol drowned out the noise around us and intensified the energy between us bringing our bodies closer; before his flirtatious tongue wrapped itself around every word and caught me by surprise; before a sudden collapse of morality covered the both of us in dust.

We were strangers among strangers.

There was something compelling about this man I didn’t know. There was a feeling of excitement, which consumed me, all of me, and traveled from my heart and moved beyond the waist down. And there I was- speechless and confused and tormented by his presence. We stood in plain view of one another, among hundreds of thousands of other people passing through the wired space between us. Despite being afraid of this feeling and the inexplicable transaction between our eyes, I couldn’t look away. The way he held his stare and grazed the grass with his feet in an effortless charismatic way; the way he interrupted the space between us and claimed it as ours made me want to devour every last bit of him. I was smitten.

There we were, amid the sound of chatter and the sound of bands playing fiddles, trumpets and harmonicas. Safely tucked away, we disappeared beneath a canopy of trees and twinkling bud lights strung together with wire. Caught in a whirlwind of sheer freedom from our inhibitions we were swallowed by our words and the alcohol buzz. There were no walls between us, or bold yellow lines etched in the ground, declaring that we stay on our own side. There were no signs claiming do not cross or beware of broken heart. For the first time I felt a sudden urge I had never felt before and this peculiar voice behind me tickled my ear and whispered, Go in further. There in the middle of the field, among thousands of people, I was kissing a stranger- a beautiful American stranger.

And there you were- a witness to what I had been a victim of many times. You stood there and watched him indulge in what you claimed you never wanted- me. And it made you angry. I dared him to go in for another and while he kissed me I thought about all the times I stood in your shoes. I remembered all the times I wanted to disconnect myself from your displays of affection with other women. I remembered all of the times I hoped our conversations would end with, “I love you.” I remembered all the times you told me how proud you were of me and how special you thought I was. I remembered how you drove to my house to kiss me and wipe away my tears. I remember the snowstorms we got stuck in, the times we discussed politics, literature, music and philosophy, and the nights which turned into mornings. I remembered the time you looked at me with genuine eyes and said there’s just something about you. I remembered the time you told me we should just be friends.

The promises we make
We often break
Sometimes even a promise we’ve made with ourselves
Don’t we?
Haven’t you?
Oh you fool
Who used her heart
And he used it too
To have it
Succumb
To a shriveled, decomposed state
Of mind
Over matter

I never counted my blessings
Only the cigarettes smoked
And the amount of times
You undressed me
Stripping me
Not of my clothes
But of me
Revealing my bare
Necessity
For a heart
You stole
Many years
Ago

Beneath my skin and bones
Is an empty cavity
That needs filling
Love willing
Without smoke
Which fills it now
From a cigarette
Tugging at the filter
Of what your mouth didn’t have
Of what it felt like
To tug at you
At your sleeve
Where I wanted you to wear your heart

And I loved him, I loved him
And now that love is gone
As courageous I have become
I was afraid that this would happen
I was afraid you’d blow all your kisses
Away
For someone else
And you have
When I had been saving mine
In the palm of my hand
Where you once held yours
In your soft hands
Unlike your heart

And you love her, you love her
And I had to imagine a life
Without you
Without her
Because it made me happy
Even though I was lying
In a bed
Which I have made
It’s happening
I have become this
What’s happened to me?
It’s better to forget
Ignorance is bliss